


A Small, Warm Thing

by averita



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/averita/pseuds/averita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron Hotchner's face is the last thing she sees before she dies. (Strauss/Hotchner friendship; references to Strauss/Rossi. Spoilers for season 8 finale.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small, Warm Thing

Aaron Hotchner’s face is the last thing she sees before she dies.

It’s also the first thing she sees when she wakes up.

(Later, she will find out that this isn’t entirely true; hazy memories of blue masks and ice and terrified screaming will begin to surface, but she will face those memories in her own bed, comforted by the same hand that she will remember clutching her own during those long, confused hours.)

The room is dim, lit only by a lamp, but the cheap blinds do little to block out the fluorescent lights from the hall. Aaron’s phone screen further illuminates his face, and he doesn’t hear the first, painful rasp that is meant to be his name. She licks her lips and tries again.

“Aaron?”

It’s not much, but it’s enough. He looks up and a rare, broad smile graces his face. “Hey,” he says quietly. “How are you feeling?”

She stares at him for a long moment, deciding not to waste her breath when her incredulous expression should do nicely; indeed, his own shifts from one of concern to one of sheepish amusement. “Fair enough,” he concedes, and stands. “I’ll go tell the doctors that you’re awake, and let your kids and the rest of the team know. Everyone’s been worried.” 

The shadows in and beneath his eyes don’t match the practiced calm of his voice, and she raises a heavy hand to stop him. “Wait,” she whispers. “Tell me...what happened?” She coughs, and gestures towards the sink and the little stack of plastic cups; Aaron fills one and helps her take several small sips before she sinks back down against the sterile pillows. 

Aaron looks hesitant, glancing towards the door. “Tell me,” she insists again, wishing her voice wasn’t so weak. “Before...I see them.”

He looks at the door again, clearly debating; he finally nods. Sitting back down, he asks, “How much do you remember?”

“I remember - oh, God,” she gasps, the bleariness of the moment disappearing with sudden and painful force. “He came, he came into my room - Aaron, he’s here, the Replicator, he’s in New York!”

“Shhh,” he murmurs, half-rising and placing a firm hand on her shoulder to stop her from sitting up. “Calm down. That was three days ago. We’re back in DC.” He pauses. “The Replicator’s dead.”

She stares at him, uncomprehending, and Aaron continues in that same soft, controlled voice. “When we found out he was in New York we realized you were the only one unaccounted for. Dave went into your hotel room and when he saw -” he pauses, briefly, as she looks away - “when he saw you weren’t there we realized that you had been taken. The Replicator left you across the street for us to find. He’d given you an altered version of the PMMA.” He waits, looking for any sign of recognition from her, but she doesn’t say anything, just stares at the ceiling. 

“You were in bad shape,” he finally says. “You’ve been on a respirator for the past two days. They had to restart your heart twice. It was a very near thing.”

She remembers the street, the chaos. She remembers a man who had held her arm and led her into a crowd of people, the same man whose face had been right next to hers when she’d first opened her eyes and tried to scream, the man who had pressed glass and something else, a needle, into her skin...the man who had held her hair with one hand and a gun with the other and forced her to drink bottle after tiny, terrible bottle...

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until Aaron presses a tissue into her hand; she takes it, but doesn’t let go.

The tears are silent and don’t last long. The lump in her throat is heavy and bitter but she’s well practiced in swallowing it down, in ignoring the tightness and getting on with what needs doing. It hasn’t worked so well for her in the past, but she needs that comfort now, the remains of her battered shields, not for Aaron’s sake but for her own. 

“What happened to him?” she asks harshly, swiping at her eyes.

Aaron shakes his head. “We followed him back here. He wasn’t counting on you surviving. That rattled him.” He smiles suddenly, a grim sort of pride shining in his eyes. “He also wasn’t counting on you falsifying case reports. Once we determined who had been reading those, things moved pretty quickly. It wasn’t the cleanest takedown but he was the only casualty.” He falls silent again, and this time, she doesn’t press him. This is enough for now.

His hand is warm and dry in her own, and more memories begin to wash over her. The cold metal bars of a bench and a darkness, a quiet that she couldn’t seem to shake; his face, close and concerned, and his arms wrapped around her. 

She thinks she remembers dying in them. It’s less painful than she would have expected. 

Aaron Hotchner has been many things to her over the years - an adversary and an ally, a thorn in her side and one of the few people she trusts. She supposes they’re friends of a sort, the kind that make small talk at gatherings more for manners’ sake than out of any burning desire to be involved - she knows more about his life from David than from the man himself. 

The details of the day-to-day feel less important now. Something has shifted, something that started years ago when he led her from the body of a girl with blonde hair, a girl who still haunts her sleep on occasion. There had been no pity in his eyes then, no reprimand. It had been the same last year when he and Morgan had come into her office, the quiet compassion not belied by the harshness of his words. 

She’s been an outsider of the BAU for so many years. She pictures Alex, glancing at her in the passenger’s seat and smiling; Penelope, a perpetual blur of brightness and humor; Morgan, his steadfast loyalty and how he seems to think she’s worthy of it, now. 

(And David. Of course David, always David.) 

Somewhere along the line, she’s become a part of this twisted little family, and she knows how much of that she owes to the man sitting by her bed with her hand in hers.

When she finally does turn to him, her eyes are wet again. She hopes he can see something in them, something she can’t find words for right now, or maybe ever. She thinks he might. His own eyes are softer than she’s ever seen until he blinks and looks away.

“You should probably make those calls,” she murmurs at last, squeezing his hand and letting go. 

He holds her gaze a moment longer, and she feels a pang of disappointment as the lines of his lips tighten slightly and he shifts back to business. “I’ll get the doctor first,” he says, lifting his cell phone from the bedside table and standing. “Your kids had to leave when visiting hours were up, but I’ll let them know you’re awake. I imagine they’ll be here first thing in the morning.” Raising his eyebrows, he adds, “I only convinced Dave to go home about an hour ago. He’s been here since you were brought in this morning. He just flashed his badge when the nurse came in and didn’t move until Blake and I got here.”

Erin smiles. Her throat is dry again and her whole body aches, but her chest feels less tight than it did when she first woke. “Good,” she says. “Now get him back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aaron agrees, and with a last, quick grin he leaves her. She settles back into the unforgiving mattress and breathes, listening to the steady beeps and murmurs of hospital nightlife.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a bunch of scenes in mind that I was planning to put together into one piece, but this seemed to work better on its own. I miss Erin like crazy, though, so it's likely some of those other scenes from this 'Strauss Survives!' universe will be written at some point! Including more Strauss/Rossi; I was going to focus on them but this sort of took on a life of its own after too many viewings of the-scene-that-shall-not-be-mentioned.


End file.
